Equipment failure at the Rock Elm Substation was the cause of yesterday's power outage. Xcel Energy said the outage affected 3700 customers for just over an hour across portions of Pepin, Pierce, and Dunn Counties. The outage caused area schools to delay the start of school for 2hrs.
The Mondovi City Council is meeting tonight. Items on the agenda include the annual budget meeting and discussion and approval of the 2022 budget, discussion and possible action on the sale of industrial park lot 5 to Randall Graese Transport, and approval of the certified survey map for Schmidtknecht road. Tonight's meeting including the Public Hearing on the budget starts at 5:30 at the Marten Center in Mondovi.
The West Central Wisconsin Workforce Development Board which serves Pepin, Pierce, Dunn, and Eau Claire Counties has received a $2 million grant to provide on-the-job training with higher wage subsidies than currently offered by previous programs, as well as the academy style training, Manufacturing Works and Healthcare Works. Targeted participants will include justice-involved individuals, non-custodial parents, long-term unemployed, tribal members, individuals with disabilities, retired individuals, and individuals unable to enter/reenter the workforce due to limited childcare options. The focus will be on jobs leading to economic self-sufficiency and sustainable wages. The grant is part of $20 million in grants awarded by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in partnership with neighboring state and federal agencies will take further action to reduce the number of invasive carp in the Mississippi River. Additional actions include increasing commercial netting operations, tracking tagged carp and ongoing use of the innovative Modified Unified Method (MUM), a tactic that involves driving fish towards a series of smaller and smaller areas until they are netted out of the water. Continued efforts follow a successful second invasive carp removal effort on Oct. 25-29 in Pool 8 of the Mississippi River near La Crosse.
A registered sex offender is accused of more sex crimes against children in Eau Claire County. Michael Steindl was convicted for the first time in 1994 and has been on the sex offender registration list for nearly 20 years. He was charged Monday with five counts of possessing child pornography. Eau Claire police got a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that child porn images had been associated with a phone number belonging to Steindl. He told officers they likely came from malware and ads. Steindl has a follow-up hearing set for December 28th
Wisconsin stands to receive five-point-two-billion dollars as part of the federal infrastructure bill signed by the president Monday. Wisconsin Department of Transportation Secretary Craig Thompson says improvement work on the state’s bridges and highways is long overdue. Thompson says Wisconsin went for a generation without increasing funding for transportation projects. He says the construction work will also create jobs for Wisconsin workers. This state has 979 bridges and nearly two thousand miles of highway rated in poor condition.
A Minneapolis man is accused of threatening to kill a T-S-A employee at M-S-P Airport and trying to assault the worker and law enforcement. Forty-four-year-old Frank Towers is charged with fourth-degree assault on a peace officer and threats of violence. Police say Towers was yelling in the Skyway checkpoint area of the airport Friday that he was going to kill a T-S-A employee. Officers say Towers was swinging a stanchion line post before throwing it at the employee. The camera shows him headbutting T-V screens and removing his clothing. When asked to stop, Towers replied he "did not have to stop... it's a free country."
The Oregon School District says it is working with local police and the Department of Justice on the investigation of some “obscene” social media posts. A website using pictures from students’ social media profiles is accused of creating “threatening” posts. The district sent an email to families last September about the problem. Oregon police investigated and found they were unable to shut the website down or remove the pictures. The site’s server is in a foreign country. More photos have been added since then. Local officials say they are working with the Justice Department.
U-S Justice Department attorneys will have to defend the ending of federal protections for gray wolves in front of a California judge. The first hearing was held Friday. In the closing days of the Trump administration, federal protections for those wolves were lifted. In response, Republican-led states like Wisconsin started efforts to reduce the number of wolves through aggressive hunting and trapping. Wildlife advocates say those hunts could reverse the gray wolf’s recovery in the West and Midwest. They asked that the protections be restored under the Endangered Species Act.
The U-S Department of Housing and Urban Development is presenting 74-million dollars in block grants for tribal communities. Deputy Secretary Adrianne Todman says the federal agency worked closely with leaders in 68 tribal communities on the COVID relief plan. The funds can be used to help protect the health and safety of the tribes, particularly low and moderate-income individuals and families – helping with access to housing, a suitable living environment, and economic opportunities. Minnesota’s share of the block grants hasn’t been specified.
Democrats on the state Assembly Elections Committee say Michael Gableman is seeking to meet with them privately, to discuss his investigation of the 2020 election. Representative Mark Spreitzer of Beloit says that’s not happening. Gableman declined to say who's working for him during his testimony last week before the committee.
The International Institute of Minnesota says about 250 Afghan refugees will arrive in the state over the next three weeks. Those Afghans arrived at U-S military bases in September and they have now completed health and security clearances. Now there is a rush of refugees being resettled. The Institute has already resettled 250 Afghans, but this latest group will have to be situated much more quickly – in less than a month. The agency says it needs financial donations to pay for the extra support staff, plus new housing, furnishings, and funding for case management.
After Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison made it official he will seek a second term, his top Republican challenger was quick to criticize the conduct of Ellison throughout his first term. Doug Wardlow, the Republican candidate for Minnesota Attorney General, says Ellison's tenure as Attorney General has "been a disaster for all Minnesotans." Wardlow also accused Ellison of fostering a "climate of lawlessness" that he says has led to a spike in crime statewide. Wardlow lost to Ellison in his first bid for A-G during the 2018 election.
The Packers will offer 300-thousand shares of stock starting at 8:00 A-M tomorrow. Fans can check out the details on the Packers website. Each share will cost 300-dollars plus a handling fee. The public ownership of the team is unique in the N-F-L. The stock offer is available only to people in the United States and its territories with a limit of 200 shares.
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